SAL adds three heavy lift vessels to its fleet

SAL Heavy Lift is happy to announce that it will expand its fleet with three heavy lift vessels with 800t lifting capacity in early 2020. They will come to serve breakbulk and heavy lift clients on world markets via SALs well known semi-liner service, but will also potentially offer new service options.

When the new year 2020 dawns, SAL will see its fleet expanding with three vessels – an addition that aims to strengthen its semi-liner service and underline SAL as a leading player in the heavy lift and project cargo segment. The vessels will enter the SAL fleet as type “171” following the long tradition of categorizing vessels at SAL.

The vessels are reliable workhorses of the well-known and commonly recognized P1 Type design. They are geared with two 400t SWL cranes capable of lifting up to 800 tons in tandem plus an additional 120t SWL crane. They will service clients along SAL’s main trade lanes between Europe and the Far East, but also SAL’s more recently introduced Africa service.

The vessels can operate in arctic areas and SAL will now offer Northeast passage transits when suitable.

Karsten Behrens continues: “The vessels also have very high crane pedestals which provide a much greater lifting height, in fact amongst the best in our fleet. In combination with the strong hydraulic hatch covers and large box-shaped holds with multiple tween deck configurations, it gives us an array of options when taking break bulk cargo onboard.”

Sebastian Westphal, CTO, SAL Heavy Lift adds: “The vessels are, as the rest of our fleet, equipped with reliable high-quality machinery. With cranes from TTS-NMF, main engines from MAN and MacGregor hatch covers, the vessels are built with equipment with which we have tremendous experience. Despite obvious design differences with our other vessels the Type 171 will be reliable work tools in our fleet and will add value.”

SAL is strengthening its fleet during a time when a greater part of its existing heavy lift fleet is engaged in renewable and oil & gas projects.

Dr. Martin Harren, CEO, SAL Heavy Lift says: “I am very happy that we have been able to add these vessels to our heavy lift fleet. This way SAL will be able to service clients who may at times look for ships that can take larger volumes of cargo in combination with heavy lift items. With SAL Engineering providing the engineering solutions and our SAL crew manning the vessels, we continue to offer our well-known SAL quality and know-how, but on a larger scale – something that I am sure clients, both new and existing, will come to appreciate.”

“MV Hanna”, “MV Klara” and “MV Lisa” will join the SAL fleet in the first quarter of 2020. These names represent family members of the former owner Heino Winter Group which will continue to handle the technical ship management of the three vessels.

Dr. Martin Harren concludes: “We have a long-lasting relation with the Winter family, and I am happy to see their continued involvement with these three ‘large ladies’.”